Welcome to the home page of Arcadea Architecture, Inc. Located in Boulder, Colorado, Arcadea is one of the best-recognized architectural design firms in the Boulder, Denver, and Rocky Mountain Regions that provides custom residential design. We are best known for designing a lot of homes on mountain sites and a lot of remodels, but lately we’ve been doing an equal number of commercial tenant finish projects and multi-family residential projects.

In addition to our expertise in architectural and interior design of custom homes, custom home remodeling projects, and multi-family residential projects, we also have experience in mixed-use, retail, commercial, commercial interior/ tenant finish, and office projects. With our office partner firm, Studio Architecture (formerly The Studio at Morgan Creek), with whom we have shared office space, we have further expanded our capabilities in elderly housing, assisted living, memory care and affordable multi-family housing, as well as a deeper portfolio of mixed-use urban infill projects.

We offer a flexible service, but we are set up to provide thoroughness, which can often save our clients more than the total of our fees. Our full services typically include 3D modeling, interior design, lighting design, cost control, and construction oversight. There is more information about this in the Process and Cost Control sections of this site. We have recently also become well known for our innovative cost estimating and cost management systems, with builders coming to us for estimating advice. Please feel free to view our architectural and interiors projects, including a fairly extensive collection of photographs of our work.

Arcadea Architecture’s beautifully creative, integrated designs have won wide acclaim in regional and national publications, such as Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record, Colorado Homes and Lifestyles Magazine, Living West Magazine, Remodeling Ideas Magazine, as well as the Rocky Mountain News and Yellow Scene. We have also had one of our projects featured on the Discovery Channel.

We use renewable and sustainable resources as much as possible, and always examine the environmental impacts on the local landscape. Although we are very design oriented architects, we also focus on the details and provide very thorough sets of construction documents and specifications. Our process includes rigorous cost management. We utilize 3D modeling programs for a holistic approach to design, and also to involve our clients in the design process. We often make hand-sketched drawings over pictures of 3D models. This process is essential to effectively design 3-dimensional structures. 2D drawings are just too abstract, and models help our clients to better understand our designs and allow them to give us better feedback. These are very useful for contractors and trades people during bidding and construction, as well. Besides this enhanced communication of ideas, we can better solve difficult architectural geometry problems. We have found that 3D modeling is an affordable alternative to cardboard models and that the process allows for multiple options to be tested and high-quality images to be rapidly produced.

Arcadea Architecture’s relatively small size allows us to provide a high level of service and responsiveness to our clients. Each site, each client, and each project gets personal attention from our principal, David Biek, and a unique solution. A cost control program is specialized and revised for each project. We bring in outside architects on a contract basis or utilize our office partner’s if we need to take on projects that are larger than our in-house team can easily manage.

Our name, ARCADEA, is a contraction of ARCHITECTURAL IDEA; the idea is the unifying element of design. It also relates to ARCADIA: a setting of idyllic simplicity, a rustic mountain utopia in ancient Greece. This is also suggestive of where we are located in Boulder, Colorado.

Our Principal Architect, David A. Biek, has a Master in Design Studies degree from Harvard University; Bachelors of Architecture and Environmental Design Degrees with Distinction, University of Minnesota; Diploma in architectural studies, University of Tianjin.

Christopher Thorp, LEED AP, has a Masters of Architecture, University of Colorado, Denver; Bachelors Degree from the USC School of Cinema-Television.
Shane Salisbury has a Masters of Architecture and Bachelor of Architecture, Montana State University, Bozeman.
Derek Zook has a Masters of Architecture and Bachelor of Architecture, Montana State University, Bozeman.
Jeff Dawson and Marcia Weese are associated with Arcadea Architecture, but have their own independent firms, as well.

Our principal, David Biek, has 30 years of professional experience (the firm is sixteen years old) designing projects nationally and internationally and many within the Boulder area. This has given him a good working knowledge of the City and County of Boulder’s Land Use Regulations and the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. Our membership and involvement with the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Boulder Inc., Historic Boulder, and Habitat for Humanity give us a wide-ranging view of the various constituencies that come to bear on local projects.

The concerns of our private clients have given us insight into the pressures and sensitivities that are faced during all projects, large and small, commercial, retail and residential. David Biek is the Chair of Boulder’s Design Advisory Board and is also on the executive trio of Architects and Planners of Boulder, a group that advocates for smart land use policies.

In addition to projects in Denver and Boulder and the surrounding Denver Colorado metro area, Arcadea has worked on projects throughout the state of Colorado – in Aspen, Louisville, Greenwood Village, Gold Hill, Flagstaff Mountain (Boulder), Grand County (CO), Colorado Springs (CO), Golden (CO), Denver, Wolf Creek Valley, Telluride, Ft. Collins, Eldorado Springs, Niwot, numerous areas in rural Boulder County, and Lionshead (Vail). We have also worked on projects throughout the United States – Orlando, Gulf Breeze, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Monroe, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois, Phoenix, Arizona; Big Sky, Montana; Boston, Dorchester, Ipswich, Massachusetts; St. Paul, Minnesota; Yosemite Park, California; and internationally in Barcelona, Spain. Arcadia California is not yet one of the sites where we’ve done work, but that would be fun and interesting if Arcadea Architecture had a presence there. As it is part of our name, Arcadia is a utopian setting of idyllic simplicity in the rugged mountain areas of ancient Greece.